Please Wait For Me
by JustSmile1
Summary: They were divided. The two of them. They had the one's they should love, the ones they would always adore. But then they had each other. And nothing could ever compare to that.


**Wait… what? I'm posting a Harry Potter fanfic, that isn't Dramione? Yeah, I have no idea what's happening to me either, but this is very much a Harry/Hermione story, with a bit of Ginny and Ron thrown in, so enjoy. Also, thanks to Thea- or Spirit-Animal-Jade, because she helped and is just generally amazing and I kinda adore her. So yeah. **

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He waits for her smile, and part of him thinks that it will never happen. Because how can you smile when the one you loved has left you?

They were the most obvious couple in Hogwarts, Hermione and Ron, the type of couple that you see in movies. The two people who were perfect for each other, and everyone else could see it but them. He knows now that she realised it too late. It's not him she wants to see in the morning, and he hates that she can barely look at him.

But she's Hermione. And if there's one thing that she is, it's loyal. So she stays with him, she stays and tries not to look as though she's broken. She tries to stay strong for him because he is the one that has had to stay strong since he was eleven years old.

The war still rages on outside of their tent. Outside the protective charms that she puts up, blood is still being shed. Hate and hysteria rule the Wizarding World. They had been on the run for over a year now and still they carried the locket on their necks.

He sits in front of her as she cuts his hair. She didn't speak, merely pushed him into a chair and started to run her fingers through his hair. It had grown ridiculously long, and he'd been meaning to ask her for a haircut but her silence scares him slightly, and in truth he's not all that certain that he could pierce the protective bubble she casts around herself.

He leans back into her touch and his breathing relaxes as she strokes the hair at the back of his neck, her fingers lightly brushing skin, before her wand cuts through the hair sharply, every snip sounding strangely satisfying. Once she's finished cutting, her hands stop, still tangled in his hair, with her fingertips placed on the back of his skull and his eyes snap open unsure of what she'll do. He doesn't want her to stop, and knew that some small part of him would break if she withdrew from this now. Her touch was comfort, and he missed being close with her.

Slowly, her hands run down to his neck and brush away the stray hairs that have fallen there. He relaxes again, his eyes falling shut and after a few sleepy moments, he vaguely notices as her hands begin to massage his neck and shoulders. Rubbing away the knots that are there from sleeping rough, or the tense panic that always rests inside his body, even when there is no logical, present reason for him to be so worked up.

He falls asleep to her touch, thinking that even though he spent countless hours with Ginny, kissing and talking, laughing and touching, this is the most intimate and bare he has ever been with anyone.

XXXXXXXXX

Her touch isn't frequent. She cuts his hair when he needs it, and massages him when she needs it. It's as relaxing and therapeutic for her as it is for him.

Her touches are always soothing, the purest form of comfort he can find, and his days seem to revolve around the thought of her fingers across his neck.

The day that he jumped into the water to get the sword, he believed he was truly to die there. He didn't know where she found the strength to pull him from the water, a sword in one hand and his body in another.

They were both weak from too much running, and not enough food, but she managed it. She dragged him out of the water and he pulled himself to his feet, shivering as the cold air swirled around him.

He stared at her and she stared right back. She wore nothing but a white vest over her underwear which was stuck to her stomach, the jut her hips visible through the flimsy material. Her wet hair was plastered to her neck, and her lips were blue, Harry briefly wondered about man-handling her back into the tent, to avoid her getting ill, but with the way she was looking at him, it didn't seem like such a good idea. Her legs shook with the effort from standing, and her chest rose and fell heavily.

"Hermione-"

He started- but watched as she lurched towards him; he registered her hand rising, and the slap she delivered was sharp and precise across his left cheek.

He looked back at her, ignoring his throbbing cheek as she stood and continued to stare at him, her jaw clenched and her fists balled. She bit her lip and swallowed.

"You could have died," she rasped out, her voice breaking as she quickly spun away from him.

And then he understood.

He understood her silence. He understood her pain. He understood her loss, and fear of losing anything more.

"I would never leave you," he replied quietly and she turned back to look at him.

"Liar."

XXXXXXXXX

They chose to destroy the locket in the morning. Hermione was cold, and they couldn't risk the two of them catching pneumonia or something worse. The night in the tent had been awkward, Hermione refused to look at him, and as ever her silence shrouded her. But it was a different silence, it was a silence of anger and pain instead of protection.

It was a crisp morning, the sky was white and the air was cold. The trees seemed to be bare and silence enveloped the pair of them. He frowned as he looked at the locket. Such a thing of pure evil seemed wrong to be sat in the middle of a forest that radiated nothing but beauty and serenity.

He wordlessly handed her the sword, as he set the locket on a rock. She stared down at the object in her hand and looked back to him, her hair piled in a loose bun on her head, with a few curls missing. He bit down the urge to tuck the curls behind her ear.

"I can't," she murmured.

"You can, you need to," he replied "I'll open it and you need to stab it immediately. My guess is that it'll put up a fight, like the one is Riddle's diary. Just remember, you can fight that Hermione, I know you can,"

She nodded warily and lifted the sword, preparing to strike. He breathed the parseltongue and watched as the locket flung open, pushing him back against a tree and he groaned at the pain in his back, at the bark seemed to claw through his clothes, ripping down his skin. He used the tree for support and weakly stood up as the sky turned black, and a billowing evil arose from the locket swarming away from him and towards Hermione as she desperately tried to shuffle backwards.

"HERMIONE!" he screamed, but his words seemed like nothing more than a whisper, a ghost of speech, as the black cloud began to talk. Voldemort's voice, echoing through everything, destroying the beauty of the forest.

"I have seen your heart and it is mine. I see your pain, how much you hurt and it does nothing but amuse me. You are nothing. Nothing but a little Mudblood.

Even your own parents are better off without you, the Weasley child figured it out as well didn't he? He left because he knew how weak you are, how little you were to him. And that's your biggest fear isn't it little Mudblood? That Potter will one day realise how worthless you are as well.

Because you know that day is coming, the day where he leaves just the same as everyone else. You think your silence protects you? It does nothing of the sort, don't you think he deserves better than a Mudblood so wrapped in her own pain that she can barely breathe?

Don't you think he would be better without you?"

"NO! Hermione, don't listen to him! Please, don't listen! You have to stab it!" He screamed, watching as the words dove into Hermione's mind and she twisted them and interpreted them. A look of recognition passed across her face and a look of defeat.

"Hermione Granger, listen to me! It's lying to you," He screamed at her, but his voice was quiet, his throat seemed to close up and he could only watch in horror as the cloud started to change and shift.

"He will die, and it will be your fault," The voice continued, changing into a scene of despair, and he watched as he saw his own body, lying dead. With his friends crying and the Death Eaters taking everyone and everything that they could and the world seemed to somehow darken, because he was lying right there, completely dead.

And then it was gone. The cloud disappeared with a shriek that was not human, and could only be described as a scream of hatred and agony.

He watched as the black cloud seemed to seep from the world, like a fog that had been banished by the wind and that was when he saw her.

The sword was clasped tightly in her hands still, and she was staring down at the locket as though she couldn't quite believe that she had just destroyed something evil. Her legs began to shake and as her eyes met his, a lone tear trickled down her cheek. Sheer adrenaline coursed through his body and he caught her body just before she collapsed to the floor, her face scrunched in pain as she shivered violently in his arms, her hair full of twigs and leaves from where she had been flung to the ground.

He adjusted her body and lifted her with ease into his arms, frowning slightly at how skinny she had become. Her head lolled onto his chest and she pushed closer to his body a desperate sort of whimper escaping her lips.

He turned and looked back around the woods, it seemed more eerie now after simply because it was so quiet. The charms protected them from detection and so he stood with her in his arms for a few minutes, letting his arms ache from holding her.

Because he was her protector now, and he refused to lose her.

XXXXXXXXX

"Where the hell did you get that?" He asked her in astonishment, as she lumped a big chunky old fashioned television set into the tent, her hair plastered to her face as the rain hit angrily against the tent.

"Junkyard, about five minutes walk away. I noticed it before, and knew a trick that would make it work," she breathed heavily, her arms dropping the set onto the floor before she stretched her arms. He watched as she grabbed a towel and starting drying her hair whilst peeling off down to her underwear.

He tactfully looked the other way, ignoring the faint blush that came to his cheeks as she changed into warmer dryer clothes and set a warming spell on the ones she had just been wearing.

He watched as she walked over next to the telly, and he raised an eyebrow.

"I remember owning a jumper that looked exactly like that," he said loudly and she twisted to look at him, pushing her damp curls behind her ears as a small smile graced her lips.

She smiled a lot more recently, he liked that. Her face seemed to light up when she smiled.

"That's very observant Harry, well done," she murmured as she walked back towards him and settled in a chair, drawing her legs up beneath her.

"That's because it is yours. I couldn't find any of mine," she continued, staring straight ahead.

He ignored the big grey clean jumper she had which was lying on her bed, untouched.

"If it's okay with you, I'd like to watch a video I bought,"

He was so surprised by the request, that he nodded dumbly.

"What's it about?" he asked curiously as she waved her wand, muttering a charm as the television stuttered into life, Hermione moved her wand ignoring him, seeming to fast forward the video through blurs of images until she decided to stop it.

There was a blonde woman on the screen who talked for a few minutes but Harry drowned out what she was saying as Hermione turned to look at him.

"It'll start in a moment. It's a clip from the video Fantasia 2000, which is my favourite ever movie. It's about a man who falls in love with a woman, because he believes she's broken like he is. He falls in love with what he believes to be her imperfection," she murmured, before shushing him as music started to play on the screen and Harry watched as the animation of a toy soldier with one leg, falls for a ballerina, who seems also to have one leg, but is really just frozen in a position with her leg outstretched behind her.

When the clip finished, he gently wiped away a tear that had rolled down her cheek as she had watched the performance. She rewound it to the beginning and the music from the piece echoed throughout the tent. He touched her cheek again and jolted back as she whipped her head around to look at him.

"He believed her to be broken, and that's why he began to fall for her. He didn't think that if she was perfect she would stay with him, but she did. Because she saw the beauty that he held even with his imperfection. She found his beauty," she whispered and he understood.

"I've never thought you were broken," he murmured leaning close enough to smell the rain that still clung to her hair and body.

"But you never saw me," she replied sadly, her hand running to the back of his neck and he shivered because it had been too long since her fingers had been there.

"I always saw you," he said quietly and then they were kissing.

And somehow it was perfect. He was shivering, and her hands ran through his hair clutching a little harder than was comfortable, but how could he care when her mouth was warm and her lips seemed to fit so brilliantly with his. She climbed into his lap and pressed tightly against him, her hands still stroking through his hair.

His kissed down her neck as they fell into bed together that night, breaking the promise she had made to Ron, and the mere friendship they used to have together.

XXXXXXXXX

"So now, it's just the diadem left."

Hermione nodded blankly, the broken cup grasped tightly in her hand. They had almost done it. Three years of running and hiding and fear and pain, and all that was left was the diadem. The diadem that would be in the school.

Luna had managed to smuggle out Helga Hufflepuff's cup, through an exotic looking bird who had searched endlessly for Harry and Hermione. She was almost killed for her effort. Unlike with the locket Hermione had quickly and efficiently plunged the sword into the cup, destroying one of the last Horcruxes easily.

Harry watched her face, her eyes now drowned in sadness. They were a constant portal of pain, and the only time it ever seemed to go away was when the two of them would lie together and pretend that they were other people, with different lives, better lives. The old radio that Ron used to constantly play hummed quietly in the background, a slow soft melody twisting throughout the air between them.

He slowly approached her, his eyes watching as she stared at the radio, a blank weary expression plastered on her face. She looked up as he stood in front of her and Harry felt his heart press desperately against his chest, and the feeling was so strong and overpowing that Harry wouldn't have been surprised if it had drowned him in it. He offered her his hand and she gazed at it a moment, the simple gesture making her beautiful eyes fill slightly with tears. He clenched his jaw together as he pulled her to her feet. For a moment they stood like that, hands pressed together as she watched him sadly, the glittery shadow of tears lurking in her eyes. He hoped she wouldn't cry, he wasn't sure he could bear it.

Then he slowly moved forward, keeping their hands locked together, he caught her lips between his. It was gentle, and meant nothing more than what it was. A kiss to say he understood, a kiss to say that he was here.

They continued to sway, gently kissing as the music played on and on.

XXXXXXXXX

Her hand was clutching at his as they stared at the people gazing right back at them. Harry coughed a little nervously as beaming faces faltered slightly as his obvious discomfort.

"We always knew you'd come back," Neville smiled, "I used to tell the little kids, if they'd just been Crucio'd and had lost hope, you wait, Harry'll come back for us, he'll protect us,"

Harry smiled a little at Neville's obvious belief in the words he was speaking and Hermione's eyes warmed, hoping to convey to Neville her thanks for giving his support.

"Is it true you killed Nagini?" Seamus blurted out and Harry turned to Hermione, who nodded in reply.

"Yes, she's dead. That's kind of why we're here actually," Hermione said, addressing the crowd. 'There's something we need to find,"

"The diadem. Ravenclaw's diadem," Harry elaborated and watched as confusion spread through the crowd of students.

"It's lost," Terry Boot said bluntly. "No one's seen it for years,"

Just after he finished speaking footsteps could be heard echoing through the room. "Someone's coming," Neville said, gesturing to the portrait which Hermione and Harry had entered through. And then he appeared.

The one person Harry had been dreading to see, and yet longing to at the same time. Hermione's nails dug against his palm and he squeezed back just as tightly in reply. For a few moments the three of them just stared at each other. Hermione and Harry on one side and Ron on the other. He had grown slightly, his eyes looked older, more weary. And he held himself as if he was expecting an attack at any minute.

Harry wondered briefly if that was how he looked to everyone else.

He knew this could be awkward. And he knew that he could very easily ignore his used-to-be-best-friend. But the war was serious, people were dying and Harry didn't want to leave this world without Ron knowing how much he loved him. How much of a brother he was to him. How much he had missed him. So, giving Hermione's hand one last squeeze, he stepped forward and opened his arms, smiling lightly as Ron almost fell into him and the two gripped on as if it had been eternity's since they had last seen each other. And in a way it had.

But then Harry stepped back and felt as his heart began to pound hard in his chest as he watched Ron and Hermione stare at each other. Then without any indication they both moved towards each other and collided somewhere in the middle, her arms linking round his neck whilst his found her waist, his fingers fisting in the material of her jacket. Harry felt as something a lot like jealousy burned through his veins and tugged and clawed and ripped at his heart as Hermione's fingers found their way into Ron's hair, twisting and knotting in the locks in a way that looked all too familiar.

They pulled away. Hermione's arm stayed hooked around Ron's neck as the two of them just watched each other, Ron's eyes greedily flickering over her face, drinking her in hungrily whilst Hermione gazed at him slightly more calmly, like a puzzle she couldn't quite figure out. She rose up onto her toes and pressed a chaste light kiss against the corner of Ron's mouth, lingering there for a second, before she pulled away completely, walking back to Harry's side and entwining their fingers once again.

And in a way, it had always been like that. Hermione enrapturing and enchanting her two boys with such ease and grace that they could never call her out on it. It was like she was grabbing at his heart and twisting it as hard and as painfully as she could, and then soothing it with gentle kisses and soft touches, apologising over and over for causing such hurt. And he would be angry at her, he really would. Because he wanted her to be his. And his alone. They had been through too much, experienced things that no one else would ever understand. So how could it not be just the two of them?

But then his eyes found Ginny's and his feet were moving before he could even think and she was in his arms, her tears hot against his neck as he clutched her in his arms once more but then his eyes found Hermione's and he recognised her expression, because it was exactly how he had felt moments before.

They were divided. The two of them. They had the one's they should love, the ones they would always adore. But then they had each other. And nothing could ever compare to that.

XXXXXXXXX

It was over. It was finally, finally done. Harry's charm versus Voldemort's and Harry's had won. The Hall erupted into noise and movement, but Harry's eyes found only hers. She sprinted to him from across the room, her hair flying behind her and for the first time, a truly happy smile on her face. She launched herself into his arms, her hands finding his hair, laughing hysterically as he swung her round, squeezing his own eyes tightly shut.

"It's over," she whispered in his ear, her delight and shock leaking through the two words. "It's finally over."

He set her on the floor and opened his eyes, watching her eyes fill with tears as she beamed up at him.

"It's over," he repeated back to her and she nodded, her hand coming to rest on his chest, just above his heart. He gently reached over and stroked across the top of her eyelid.

"Don't cry. There have been too many tears,"

"You're finally safe," she murmured.

"So are you,"

"Harry I…" she trailed off and breathed out a small laugh, ignoring the commotion happening behind them as people watched their interaction and screamed his name and cried and laughed and sang. "Harry Potter," she said quietly. "I love you,"

It was all in the papers. 'Harry Potter… I love you.' Seemed to be the title of every Wizardening paper in the world. Harry and Hermione's lives were so public, their stories woven with clever emotive words and tear jerking memories. But nobody really saw them.

Because the papers were about friendship. About the loyalty between the pair. About the love they shared, like siblings; whilst hidden in the back pages were the slight hints towards Harry and Ginny's relationship, and secret photographs of Hermione and Ron's moments together.

Their love was misunderstood. Misinterpreted. But in a way, it was better like that. It was better to leave it unsaid, because really it was a love that couldn't be.

XXXXXXXXX

"Have I lost her to him?" Ron asked quietly, watching as Harry leant down to accept hugs, which was proving a little tricky as Hermione refused to be taken from his left hand side, and Ron very much doubted whether Harry would have let her leave anyway.

Luna looked up at him, a small scarring cut just below her right eye as she frowned, a soft smile against her lips.

"But Ronald, that would imply she was yours to begin with?"

XXXXXXXXX

Harry lay still in his bed, the sweat trickling down his back, a sensation he would do anything to stop, except for the fact he couldn't move. His hands were bunched into fists and his eyes were scrunched tight as he pressed his face in the pillow, his heart thumping loudly, painfully in his chest.

He desperately tried to not think about the empty space beside him, how his arms were empty and he couldn't feel the constant reassuring heartbeat that would remind him she was safe. His stomach flipped and dived and he could feel the nausea building rapidly, clenching around his throat and constricting his breathing.

"Harry." Her voice gasped and Harry shot up his eyes widening as he saw her dishevelled state, her hair even messier than normal, the bags under her eyes and the look of utter fear in her eyes. They somehow collided and he pulled her shaking body next to his in the bed, tucking her head under his chin as he took deep breaths, listening the sound of her breathing and murmuring as she pressed herself as tightly against his body as she could, one of her legs slipping between his own and her fingers twined with his.

"I had to apparate here,"she said quietly into the dark room. "I just left Ron, I couldn't deal with not knowing how or where you were, I just couldn't, Harry I couldn't…"

"I know, I felt it too,"

She pulled back slightly and looked into his eyes, her free hand brushing his hair away from his eyes.

"You need a haircut,"

"I've been waiting for you to give me one,"

She smiled softly and leaned towards him, her nose brushing his gently as her honey eyes continued to stare at his. He felt her smile against his mouth as her lips captured his, he softly kissed her back, his body growing warm as her eyes fluttered shut.

They were both too exhausted for anything else to happen tonight. Their emotions had wrecked the two of them, messing with their heads and refusing them to go back to normality. He felt her shift in his arms and his mind shot him back to their moments in the tent, with the wind howling and the rain pounding and the two of them so entangled in each other, it was hard to tell where one stopped and the other started. How right it felt. It didn't matter that she was now 'with' Ron and he was 'with' Ginny. Those relationships were different to what the two of them had. They shared an unbreakable bond and that could never be changed. Words like girlfriend and fiancée and marriage, had no meaning to them. Their souls had moulded together, becoming one.

It hadn't taken them long to realise that the words 'separation anxiety' applied to the both of them, and neither acknowledged the fact that they were glad to have a reason to keep them together.

XXXXXXXXX

Molly watched sadly as Ron and Hermione bickered quietly in the kitchen, Hermione's eyes glinting with amusement as she manoeuvred herself around Ron, answering his questions and shooting down his replies with her own calm responses. She didn't miss the way her sons eyes shone with what could only be adoration, as the curly haired witch, gently raised herself up and pressed a kiss against his lips, lingering there a moment as her hands stroked the hair around his ears.

She bought the mug up to her lips and quickly swallowed the burning liquid, the chocolaty taste swirling around her mouth. Whilst she did not hold that same fascination for Muggles as her husband, she had become quite fond of the Hot Chocolate Hermione had introduced to her. Her eyes drifted into the living room, where Harry and Ginny were sat staring into the fire, Ginny playing with her boyfriend's hands.

Molly tilted her head slightly as Harry's eyes took on a glazed pained look as he continued to stare into the fire and Ginny kissed each of his fingers, her worried eyes moving across his face. Molly quickly put down her mug and bustled into the living room, stopping in front of the pair on the floor and crouching down on the floor, examining Harry's face.

"How long?" She asked and Ginny took a shaky breath.

"About twenty minutes," she replied, anxiously moving closer to her boyfriend's blank face and rubbing his arm, murmuring his name under her breath.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Molly asked, her voice concerned as she looked into her daughter's tearful eyes. Ginny tilted her head forward, letting her orange red act as curtain from her mother's worried gaze.

"Because, for once, I wanted to be the one to pull him out of it,"

Molly's face softened and she fought back the burn of tears as her eyes flickered between her daughter and the man she loved like a son. Harry had these episodes, moments where his reality would fade and he would be back in the war, watching his loved one's die around him, replaying Sirius's death or Dumbledore's or Dobby's over and over again until he would become hysterical, kicking and screaming and crying. And for a while, everyone was helpless, watching as the man believed to be a Hero, would fall apart, cursing as things he was seeing, that just weren't there.

And then they discovered Hermione.

They found her voice and touch and smell, everything that was her would pull him out, pull him away from a time he couldn't bear to think about, much less relive.

In a few moments, Hermione was by Molly's side, her affection with Ron over and her eyes for Harry's only. Molly shifted out of her way and watched as she slowly bought back the love of her daughter's life.

Her hands cupped Harry's face, her fingers dancing along his cheekbones and lips, as she began to hum quietly. They moved from his face to his neck, slipping into his hair as she tugged and twisted at his black locks, his fingertips massaging his skull. And then she began to sing.

"You gave it all, gave into the call,

You took a chance and you took a fall for us,

You came thoughtfully, loved my faithfully, you gave me honour, you did it for me."

Harry blinked heavily once, twice, then his eyes filled with tears and he gaze sharpened as he looked around the room. Hermione continued to sing her lullaby, her eyes warm and caring and so filled with love that it made Molly's heart ache.

"Tonight, you will sleep for good. You will wait, for me, my love," she continued to hum the lullaby, gently catching Harry's tear and wiping it away.

"I'm tired," Harry muttered, his eyes fluttering close at the touch of her palm against his cheek.

"I know my love. Bed time," she spoke quietly, as if to a child and helped him to his feet, quickly walking to Ron and pressing another kiss against his lips. Harry stood tiredly as Ginny kissed his cheek and wished him a good night, she avoided Hermione's eyes entirely. Hermione gently took Harry's hand and tugged him out the room, softly calling goodnight to everyone.

Molly watched silently as her children tidied up the room and kitchen, neither saying a word before bidding each other goodnight. They were accepting of what they had. They could never capture their lovers soul, that was something that had already happened. So, they took what they could get and she would support them in that until the day she died.

But damn if it didn't hurt her, just as much as them to see.

XXXXXXXXX

Ron sometimes wonders if Hermione is waiting for death. Not because she truly wants to die, but because she want to exist in a world where they, Harry and herself, can be together, truly and completely with no complications or worries.

Because no matter what, she will love him. Ron knows that, he sees it in every look she sends him, every gesture, every kiss. But he also sees how she looks at Harry. How some nights he'll hear the soft pop of her apparating, because she can't stand to not be with him. He sometimes sees marks on her skin that he knows he didn't put there.

It's tearing them apart. It's happening slowly, and won't be so noticeable until twenty years later when he will find he can no longer talk to Harry. And in truth, it breaks his heart. Because Harry is his brother; Harry is a part of him. But Harry will never give up Hermione, and Hermione will never give up Ron and Ron will continue to be in love with her for forever and a day. And it will rip them apart.

But what can he do? He left her to him, and so he only has himself to blame.

XXXXXXXXX

Luna sees badness. It floats in the air, clouding some people, shrouding them in a darkness that makes her want to run away and hide. George's badness is different. It drifts around him, swirling in front of his eyes with a sort of desperation and melancholy that makes Luna want to magic him to another place, take him somewhere beautiful where his badness-his aching, piercing sadness, just soars away. There's a scar on his face and on the days where he's calm, Luna runs the pads of her fingertips against at it, as George stares at something that's just too invisible for even her eyesight. The scar is self inflicted, caused because George can't stand the sight of his own face- it looks exactly like the one he lost. Like Fred.

George can't be around Harry. Luna knows the fact hurts George as much as it pains Harry, but he just can't. Because Harry represents war and death and hurting and George can't handle remembering. When George remembers he gets cast back to that time, the exact moment when he loses his other half. So now he's full of potions, spells that muddle his mind and make him forget. But he still asks, he asks about Harry and occasionally Hermione and his eyes hold a special look, as if he knows and understands their relationship, as if it was something he had foreseen.

But still Luna likes to sit with George. He mutters things under his breath and sometimes smashes things violently, none of it matters to her though; Luna likes to sit with George.

George asks about his brother one day, about Ronald. And Luna thinks back to Ron's heartbroken face when Hermione looks over to Harry instead of her gaze fixed firmly on him and Luna finds herself crying.

Because even though the war is over. The Golden Trio still have not found peace.

XXXXXXXXX

'I miss you,'

'I can't live without you,'

'No one will ever understand this,'

'I need you.'

'I love you.'

How do you live in a world that's broken? Because theirs was broken. They had safety now, Voldemort was gone, they could live without the constant fear of death. But they also now had a part to play, Harry was meant to become a world class Auror with Ron as his partner. Hermione was meant to go back to school and finish her Seventh Year, then find a job in the Ministry and be written about in books as 'The Brightest Witch of Her Age' i'm so pinickety). And then they would marry the right people and have the beautiful children and they would be remembered as that. Perfect.

But they weren't.

They were the two friends who were in love. They were the broken pieces of war; those pieces of the puzzle that don't quite fit, but you put them there anyway just to make up the picture. Nobody looked too hard at the edges either, they didn't see or want to see how the spaces between the three were growing every day, or how everything was a little off. They'd done their job, they were heroes. What more could they ask for? They were no longer the Wizarding world's concern. In the history book was where they belong now, cited as the great saviours of the Wizarding race. Potter's trio of friends; Harry, Ron and Hermione. Except they weren't.

They were Harry and Hermione.

And Ron.


End file.
